[7][8] In 1134[5] or 1136,[8][4] the abbey was established in its current position, King Stephen having granted Buckfast to the French Abbot of Savigny.

[5] At Kingsbridge the abbey had the rights to a weekly market and an annual fair, leading to the growth of the town.

[11] The 19th century excavations suggested that there was major rebuilding work at this time, of which the tower attached to the abbot's house is the sole upstanding survival.

[10] The last Abbot, Gabriel Donne (d.1558), surrendered the abbey on 25 February 1539 to Sir William Petre, acting as agent for King Henry VIII.

Following dissolution, the abbey site and its lands were granted by the crown to Sir Thomas Denys (c.1477–1561) of Holcombe Burnell, near Exeter, who stripped the buildings and "reduced them to ruins".

Berry had the ruins demolished, constructing a Gothic style "castellated Tudor" mansion house, and a wool mill on the site in 1806.

An advert was placed in The Tablet, describing the Abbey as "a grand acquisition could it be restored to its original purpose."

[12] In 1880 the Abbaye Sainte-Marie de la Pierre-qui-Vire [fr] was suppressed under a new French law and some of the monks went to St. Augustine's Priory in Ramsgate.

[17][5][16] The new abbey church was built in the "Norman Transitional and Early English" styles, to the designs of architect Frederick Arthur Walters.

[19] Construction methods were primitive: wooden scaffolding was held together by ropes and no safety protection was worn by the monks.

[citation needed] Construction continued throughout World War I: some of the monks were of German nationality, but were not sent to an internment camp on condition that they remained confined to the Abbey grounds.

His travelling companion Anscar Vonier became the next abbot and pledged to fulfill Natter's dying wish, to rebuild the abbey.

[12] In 1968, Dom Charles Norris completed the east window in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, using the dalle de verre technique where coloured-glass tiles are shaped and formed into mosaics bound with resin.

[23] The hair shirt of Roman Catholic Saint Thomas More is now preserved at a side altar in the Abbey.

These are arrayed around a central cloister, with the refectory in the south range and the monks' cells on the upper floors in the traditional manner.

However, there are some discrepancies from the usual plan due to the incorporation of the medieval abbot's tower and the 19th century country house.

The core of the abbey still sits within a walled precinct, with medieval gates to the north and south, and a modern one to the west (built in 1984).

[31] Next door is a small Methodist chapel, an unlikely bedfellow with the Catholic abbey, which was built in 1881, the year before the monks returned.

[33] Its perceived links to violent anti-social behaviour – especially in Scotland – have been a controversial issue for the abbey[34][35] which has employed a youth worker in one area affected.

[36] Following a decision by Police Scotland to attach anti-crime labels to bottles in some areas, the distributor for Great Britain, J Chandler and Co. announced its intention to pursue legal action.

[37] Brother Adam, born Karl Kehrle in 1898 in Germany, died in 1996, was put in charge of the Abbey's beekeeping in 1919, and began extensive breeding work creating the honeybee now known as the Buckfast bee.

At the request of the government, Brother Adam helped in restocking the British Isles with his disease resistant Buckfast bees.

[44][45] With the outbreak of World War II, Plymouth-based St Boniface's Catholic College evacuated its pupils to Buckfast Abbey between 1941 and 1945.

The School of the Annunciation was a place of learning for adults and was a charitable company based in the grounds of Buckfast Abbey.

[46] It offered distance learning, part-time programmes, summer schools and short courses in theology, philosophy, catechetics, sacred beauty, liturgy and other associated subjects to support the New Evangelisation.

[48] The choir gives several concert performances each year, and in 2024 this included the premiere of a new Mass for Corpus Christi composed by Martin Baker.

[52] The organ contains 5,537 pipes and features a striking Pontifical Trumpet en chamade, which protrudes horizontally from the West Gallery casework.

[53] Important changes to the stop list were made by Ralph Downes, who also rescaled and revoiced the existing pipework in the 1940s and 1950s.

In August 2018, the Abbey hosted the Millennium Bell Ringing Festival in celebration of its 1000th year since the foundation of the monastery.